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« Back to Egypt: The vital middle in the Middle East main page    Transcript for: Egypt: The vital middle in the Middle Easttranscript.631.html ANNOUNCER: Think Tank is made possible by AMGEN, recipient of thePresidential National Medal of Technology. AMGEN, helping cancerpatients through cellular and molecular biology. Improving livestoday and bringing hope for tomorrow. Brought to you in part by ADM,feeding the world is thebiggest challenge of the new century, whichis why ADM promotes satellite technology to help the American farmerbe even more productive. ADM, supermarket to the world. Additionalfunding is provided by the John M. Olin Foundation, the LillyEndowment, the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the UnitedStates-Japan Foundation, and the Donner Canadian Foundation. (Musical break.) MR. WATTENBERG: Ef salaam alikum (sp). I'm Ben Wattenberg inCairo, Egypt, a country of 60 million people, and the leader of theArab world. It's said, as Egypt goes, so goes the Middle East. What's going on here is not what has been going on here. Afterdecades of economic stagnation, Egypt is moving ahead. MR. MOUSSA: Ten years ago, the per capita income was around $600. Now, it is doubled. It is around $1200. MR. WATTENBERG: A wave of market capitalism and politicaldemocracy has been sweeping across the world, Eastern Europe, LatinAmerica, Russia and Asia despite their problems. Mostly absent fromthe march toward markets had been the Arab nations of the MiddleEast. Now signs of change from the crucial country Egypt. The topicbefore the house, the vital middle in the Middle East, this week onThink Tank. (Musical break.) MR. WATTENBERG: President Hosni Mubarak has made Egypt's economicgrowth a priority. The country now sports a healthy annual growthrate. Earlier this year, Egypt hosted a meeting of 15 developingcountries trying to get onboard the train to modernism, economic andpolitical. It's not easy going. Egypt, like many developingnations, is emerging from decades as a socialist economic system, andhas a long way yet to go toward full democracy. Amr Moussa is theforeign minister of Egypt. MR. MOUSSA: In terms of roads, communications, airports, schools,hospitals, electricity, sewage, all that, an underground metro inCairo, and then in Alexandria, all those things have been rebuilt. So, the hopes are really growing that we can do it, and we can do itin much shorter period of time than we would have thought. MR. WATTENBERG: In earlier times, jobs and the government weretightly and unprofitably linked. Now, modern Egyptians are lookingto the private sector as a force for change. MR. MOUSSA: We are talking about market economy. Therefore, weare talking about private sector. We are talking about individuals,and individual contracts, individual joint ventures, and this is whatis lacking now because individuals are frustrated. They don't wantto enter into this. Once this conciliation or this understanding isachieved, I believe it will play a very important role in rebuildingor in building the regional economic prosperity. MR. WATTENBERG: There's an air of optimism among many youngpeople. Egyptians returning from years abroad are quick to noticethe difference. Heba El-Shazli. MS. EL-SHAZLI: Why should we leave. There are new opportunities. We can start businesses, we can actually have a decent living here. And why leave? Why leave our families, why be far away, why bestrangers in a foreign land, and have to struggle and go through allthe difficulties, when we can stay in Egypt? Life is not perfect. There are still lots of problems, however, we can make a go out ofit. We can start a new business. We can -- we can make money. MR. WATTENBERG: Political reforms are also surfacing in a countryaccustomed to one party rule and less than total freedom ofexpression. Salama Salama is a columnist for the Egyptian newspaperAlahram. MR. SALAMA: The economic reforms are taking the lead. Thepolitical reforms are still back behind. We do hope that if theeconomic reform succeed in getting to these goals, this will, in away, encourage the political system to take much more courageoussteps in liberating the political system, in putting it into the samestep with the economic system also. We think that this will come. MR. WATTENBERG: With the globalization of the economy, computers,satellites and television are changing life in Egypt, bringing ininformation from all over the world. MR. SALAMA: Yes, of course, I would say that the impact of theglobalization of news, which as they said, made the world a smallvillage, is very strong in Egypt. As you may have noted, thatactually the dishes are all over the houses here. The people aregetting their news not only from this, but also from broadcasts,broadcast news systems and so on, or world broadcast systems, whicheverybody is hearing. MR. WATTENBERG: As in many less developed countries, freedom ofthe press and exposure to foreign cultures may be seen as a mixedblessing. Emad Adeeb is the host of On The Air, the most popularArab language television program. MR. ADEEB: The worst thing the Arab world imports is theinformation. How does this really happen? You have, let's say, anevent which happens in the Arab world, which is something like avisit or negotiations between Arafat and Netanyahu. We don't get theinformation from the Arab side. We get it from the Americans. Ithappens in the Middle East. It's manufactured in Atlanta, in theUnited States, and then it is exported to us. This is the mostdangerous thing. Openness, no borders, a world without -- it's theright of the human being to get his information or his culture fromanywhere he wants, but at the same time, you should have your localnews, you have your local information, your local culture. MR. WATTENBERG: Egyptians hope that their close cultural ties tosurrounding Arab countries will set an example. MR. MOUSSA: What is lacking is to create -- to establish thecommunity of interests. And this is what should be done. It is notenough to say, we are one Arab nation, as has been said 30 years ago. You were referring to that earlier, but to say, we have jointinterests, we have interests together. We can do it together. Wecan develop into the future together. We can do that underconditions of peace. It is not necessarily that Arab nationalismmeans confrontation with everybody else. No, not necessarily that. But Arab solidarity, Arab common life, could be a positive factor inbuilding a new Middle East, and a new Middle East with conciliationwith others living in the same region, provided as I said that Arabsfeel that justice has really prevailed. MR. WATTENBERG: It all sounds like progress in a very volatilepart of the world. But how much? Is it real? Are the lessons ofEgypt a model for the rest of the Arab world? To find out, we talkedto our expert panel in Cairo. Joining us are Mona Makram-Ebeid, aprofessor of political science at the American University in Cairo,and Mohamed Monheim, the editor-in-chief of the influential magazineRose El Yousef. Thank you both very much for joining us. It is saidthat as Egypt goes, so goes the Middle East. That's what we hear. How is Egypt going these days, what's happening? MS. MAKRAM-EBEID: Well, the saying is right, I think, I believe,because Egypt is known as a very central position and a heavyweightin the inter-Arab circles. Egypt today is poised to take animportant regional role, as you know. But it's a different role. It's a role after the peace process, we hope, which is different thanwhen the negotiations were going on between Egypt and Israel. So,there is a different complex today with the economic dimension, withneed for cooperation in the region. MR. WATTENBERG: How is Egypt doing economically now? MR. MONHEIM: Well, I believe it's prospering, it's booming. Everyone is praising the economic reforms and the privatizationexperience. Actually, we are now in a position to say that we areabout to make our breakthrough. MR. WATTENBERG: Do you agree with that? MS. MAKRAM-EBEID: No. I'm not as optimistic, but I think that alot has been done in the economic aspects of the liberalization ofthe economy and that sort of adjustment, but it has also caused a lotof problems. So there's the other side. MR. WATTENBERG: What sort of problems? MS. MAKRAM-EBEID: Well, socioeconomic strains for the people whohave been most affected, and usually it's the vulnerable sections ofthe society like women, like children, like the lower middle class,the middle class itself. MR. WATTENBERG: In other words, the economic boom starts on thetop? MS. MAKRAM-EBEID: It's starting on the top, yes, I would say. MR. MONHEIM: I don't see it this way. MR. WATTENBERG: Good. MR. MONHEIM: I don't see it this way. I think everybody is -- MR. WATTENBERG: You think the man on the street is better offnow? MR. MONHEIM: I think everybody is profiting, everybody isprofiting. And when I say that, I usually go back to the '70s and'60s. I remember these days very well. And on the big -- what thelate President Sadat said in 1973, he said that the treasury, thebudget, the whole money in this country is zero. We started actuallyfrom scratch. And I believe also that we sent someone to get some$450,000 in order -- because we needed very vital spare parts for ourarmed forces. We sent someone to borrow it from. But actually now,if you go in any street, you'll find more than that money everywhere. So, the thing is that the Egyptians, like Mona, and Mona is atypically Egyptian one, they have high hopes, and when theycomparethemselves, they go and compare themselves with the Americans, forinstance, also. But for us, for our experience, for what we havebeen through, I believe that what we gained is a miracle. MR. WATTENBERG: Is a miracle? MR. MONHEIM: Yes, I think so. MR. WATTENBERG: It's said that there is a lot of progress butthat the Egyptian bureaucracy is so deep and so strong that it's veryhard to make progress. Is that -- MS. MAKRAM-EBEID: Very entrenched. It's the biggest bureaucracyin the world and the oldest one. And so, this is very heavy to move. Egypt is a very old country, and a lot of the traditions and thehabits are very much entrenched. MR. WATTENBERG: For example, what is it that holds back -- MS. MAKRAM-EBEID: The enormous public sector that was establishedin the '60s has caused a lot of paralysis in many of theinstitutions. And the mentality is still not geared towardsprivatization, towards the capitalist model, towards the liberalsystem, and so on. So it takes time. It's gradual. It's moving,but it's not -- I mean, we're still in the process. MR. MONHEIM: So, the thing is that I find what is more difficult,more hard is that this indolent change that Egypt has to go through,starting from the mid-'50s, you know, we had to go through the SovietUnion, the ex-Soviet Union, and we're actually a satellite -- almosta satellite state to the Soviet bloc. But,in the late '60s and theearly '70s, we changed course and went to the West. MR. WATTENBERG: Does economic reform of this sort inevitably leadto democratic political reform? MS. MAKRAM-EBEID: Not necessarily, because -- anyway, in thiscase, the economic reform has gone much faster than the political orsocial reform, and in fact this is what we are demanding that thethree -- it's a three-legged process. One of them is going a bitfaster than the two others. MR. WATTENBERG: The economic? MS. MAKRAM-EBEID: Yes. So the political reform that is in demandtoday is revising the political system, meaning that the politicalparties could have more life, more diversity, a reform of the mainparties. We see -- I mean, in the future, the democratic process isthat if the NDP, which is the National Democratic Party, the mainparty, could evolve into a single party system democracy, somethingvery similar to Mexico, for instance, or to Japan. This willreinforce, I believe, the democratic system, and the stability of theprocess. On the other hand, socially, also, there are a lot ofrestrictions today to the vigor of the civil society. The civilsociety today is trying to break through, NGOs, and non-governmentalassociations. MR. WATTENBERG: So, for example, when you say the civil society,what are you talking about? MS. MAKRAM-EBEID: I'm talking about trade unions,non-governmental organizations. MR. WATTENBERG: Yes, I know. But for example? MS. MAKRAM-EBEID: Like associations, trade unions, and manyorganizations that deal with the issues that the government today isunable to cope with, because it is retracting from the so-calledwelfare system that existed in the socialist state. So, today withprivatization, there is a greater need for the civil society to bemore active, be more present, to complement the efforts of thegovernment in education, in health, in women's rights, in civilrights, in raising the awareness of the political system, and so on. MR. WATTENBERG: You said, I think, we have to reinvigorate orreinforce the democracy. Is Egypt a democracy today? I mean,doesn't President Mubarak, whatever he wants, he pretty well gets? MR. MONHEIM: No. I think it's a real democracy for the firsttime in three years. Mubarak, President Mubarak, is a staunchsupporter for democracy, and he applied it, and was so patientdespite the fact that democracy has been exploited by some flanks topenetrate and impose a lot of theories. The latest of those were thefundamentalists. And, as Mona was saying, the NGOs, the tradeunions, and syndicates, and all the things, the fundamentalists triedto penetrate this in order to control the political arena. This, ofcourse, hampered a little, and obstructed the experience, but I wouldsay that democracy now, and during Mubarak's time, was not precededin the history of this country. MR. WATTENBERG: Well, but you are the editor of a magazine,right? MR. MONHEIM: Yes. MR. WATTENBERG: Now, if you want to write in your magazine thatPresident Mubarak is doing a bad job. MR. MONHEIM: Yes. MR. WATTENBERG: He's not a good president. MR. MONHEIM: Yes. MR. WATTENBERG: We should have another president. MR. MONHEIM: Yes. MR. WATTENBERG: Can you do that? MR. MONHEIM: I can't do that simply because I adore the man and Iadmire him so much, but someone else would. MR. WATTENBERG: Aren't there newspapers and magazines that writethat in Egypt? MR. MONHEIM: They went even far beyond anything. But no oneactually says so because they are fully convinced that he's a verygood man. But they attack his aides, his ministers, his primeminister. They attack almost everybody. MR. WATTENBERG: So, you -- what you're visualizing in a one partystate, in a one party democracy, is that Mubarak, or someone whosucceeds Mubarak, would still be -- MS. MAKRAM-EBEID: Strong president powers. MR. WATTENBERG: Very strong, very strong. MS. MAKRAM-EBEID: Yes, because we have a presidential systemhere. And that's why I'm saying, I'm giving the comparison betweenJapan and Mexico, because they're much closer to us as far as systemgoes. Now, as far as the freedom of the press that you're talkingabout, the opposition papers are quite free to criticize, I must say. There is a limit, of course, to some -- they don't usually criticizethe president because it's a consensus among them. But theycriticize the system. They criticize many of the laws that arecoming out, the issues, the economic issues, social issues, andparticularly the slowness of the political reforms. And you havemany editorials even in government-sponsored papers that aresometimes more critical even than the opposition papers. So, I wouldsay that relatively there is a much greater freedom of the press. There's much greater freedom of the judicial system also. Thejudicial system is much more -- much stronger than it was before. But, there is, you know, a limitation to all this. There ispluralism but with a limited opposition, I would say. MR. WATTENBERG: What role does America play in this wholeequation that's going on? MS. MAKRAM-EBEID: Well, of course, there is an Americanization ofa lot of things now, and CNN is the most powerful media, I guess,today. MR. WATTENBERG: You get CNN here, what on the cable, or on the -- MS. MAKRAM-EBEID: On the cable, but most of the people have it. And there is a CNN syndrome, obviously, and McDonald's, andKentucky's, and there is a lot of mimicry and the kind of a -- sortof a love/hate relationship. There's a lot of admiration, butthere's a lot of criticism on the other hand. I would say that if wetalk about the relationship with Egypt that it's quite the uniquerelationship because it has withstood for 15 or 17 years up to thepeace process. Now it's a different stage because the U.S. hasstopped looking at Egypt just as a strategic asset, or as just asIsrael's peace partner. There is much more to it. MR. WATTENBERG: Some years ago, 30 years ago, I guess, whenNasser was still in power, there was talk of the Maghreb, the greatArab nation. MR. MONHEIM: Yes. MR. WATTENBERG: Since then, you don't hear -- and it was a timewhen Arab influence was much greater than it is now, it had a superpower arms supplier in the Soviet Union. The oil wealth was great inthe Arab countries. Now, since then, that power and influence to theuntrained eye has gone downhill. Oil is very cheap. You don't hearmuch talk about a greater Arab nation with Egypt as the head. Isthat accurate? Tell me, am I wrong, or is that accurate? MR. MONHEIM: Well, to a certain extent it is accurate, yes. I'mafraid to say so. But, while the 1967 defeat caused a greatfrustration, and actually shuttered off this theme of having a unitedArab nation, it would take time, but actually there's something wrongwith the Arab mentality. We started the idea of Arab unity, and Arabnationality before the Europeans, you know. Now the Europeans haveEuro, and they are doing, and they are doing very well, but we arenot. We are more separate states than we used to be before. I don'tknow why. It has something to do with -- MR. WATTENBERG: Is that still your dream for a united Arabnation? Is that your dream, your vision? MS. MAKRAM-EBEID: Well, of course, the region would gain muchmore, particularly that we're going into an era of blocs. There's nomore countries on their own that stand, even if they're the richestcountries or the most populated countries, and here we have twoexamples, like Saudi Arabia being the richest, or the Emirates, andEgypt being the most populated. If they don't complement each other,if there is no complementarity in the region, then it won't stand tohave this importance that you're talking about. And, in fact, it'sthe last region that has not established this kind of consensus, ofbloc or union, it's happening everywhere. It's happening in LatinAmerica, it's happening with North America, Canada and Mexico, withthe Asian countries, I don't see why it shouldn't happen here. MR. WATTENBERG: Okay. Thank you very much. And thank you. ForThink Tank, I'm Ben Wattenberg. ANNOUNCER: We at Think Tank depend on your views to make our showbetter. Please send your questions and comments to New River Media,1150 Seventeenth Street, Northwest, Washington, D.C. 20036, or emailus at thinktank@pbs.org. To learn more about Think Tank, visit PBSOnline at http://www.pbs.org/>www.pbs.org. And please let us knowwhere you watch Think Tank. This has been a production of BJW,Incorporated, in association with New River Media, which are solelyresponsible for its content. Think Tank is made possible by AMGEN,recipient of the Presidential National Medal of Technology. AMGEN,helping cancer patients through cellular and molecular biology. Improving lives today and bringing hope for tomorrow. Brought to youin part by ADM, feeding the world is the biggest challenge of the newcentury, which is why ADM promotes satellite technology to help theAmerican farmer be even more productive. ADM, supermarket to theworld. Additional funding is provided by the John M. OlinFoundation, the Lilly Endowment, the Lynde and Harry BradleyFoundation, the United States-Japan Foundation, and the DonnerCanadian Foundation. (End of program.) Back to top  Think Tank is made possible by generous support from the Smith Richardson Foundation, the Bernard and Irene Schwartz Foundation, the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the John M. Olin Foundation, the Donner Canadian Foundation, the Dodge Jones Foundation, and Pfizer, Inc. ©Copyright Think Tank. All rights reserved. 
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